HTC Pocket PC Phone (Space Needle)

Average Ratings

Problems galore...a good way to miss a lot of incoming calls

Dec 20, 2002 by Steve Bell

I have checked the reviews here on this phone a couple times and have been surprised that everyone else is raving about this phone. I thought I should offer my opinion. I am in the Salt Lake City area.

All I have had is problems!

A few things to consider if you are considering buying this phone (or an engineer working on redesigning it)

1) Only one sound-emitting device onboard. This means that the ringtones AND the caller voices emit from one speaker. My ear drum hurts right now because I put the phone up to my ear and the ringer made noise- there are a couple ways this can happen. Also, it is difficult to hear it ring when you are in a different room.

2) I bought my wife a Nokia 3390 also on T-Mobile and we can be traveling together throughout the day all-the-while her phone ringing and mine does not ring at all. Then at some later point, (1-10 hours later) my phone notifies me of missed calls and new voice mail! When we drive in and out of service areas, her phone has acquired service 1-3 miles before mine! It does not work well in my basement (where others do).

3) Usually, after using the internet the only way I can place or receive calls again is by a soft reset.They have replaced the phone 3 times and each one has the same problems.

4) Pressing the icon on the phone for checking the battery level usually results in a "unknown" reading. You can check it under start> settings, but that is a pain.

5) This thing is slow. I do not know if it is the software or the processor. On most phones the phone rings and you simply answer it. With this one, the phone rings and you press the button to answer it, but it has to "think" about it before the call is picked up. I compare it to the frustration you would have using a 386 computer or 14.4 modem.

really expensive paperweight

Jan 20, 2003 by james b

The T-Mobile Pocket PC has preformed very poorly for me.I flew into a city and started to send an Email to a customer when the PPC locked up. Hard rebooting deletes your contact info so I no longer had the customer contact info. Luckily I had it in an email on my laptop.Taking notes it locked up again I get a call. But I can answer the phone as the PPC is not taking button or screen input. The phone rings incessantly!!! until I stick the little pin in the hole and hard reboot it. Again no more address book appointments, or contact info. I finish a conversation with my boss but my phone refuses to hang up until I hard reboot it.Hope I dont need to call anyone until I get back to my address book. On the up side the rebooting pin is handy as its built in side of the stylus. It's like they knew I would need to use it daily....

Rebooting is a daily thing for me now.OK I cant use it as a PDA it can hold no information persistently.And I cant use it as a phone as it locks up dialing and receiving 30% of the time. So I have a really expensive paperweight.

The T-Mobile replacement unit never came up. The new unit locked up during setup. Detailed memory location errors before it freezes up.

I have asked T-Mobile to replace the unit with a phone. A cheep phone I dont care. But they declined. T-Mobile doesnt seem to mind selling phone that dont work. They did offer to sell me a phone. I could get it for less from Amazon and ebay and half that from another carrier. I'm going to get a phone that works on another service. T-mobile has left me no other practical alternative. But they were nice enough to point out that that would cost me the early termination fee. Way to go T-Mobile.

PS they recommended I sell it to a friend or Online. I wouldn't do that to a friend, Or you guys.!!!

Great PDA, but horrible phone!

Aug 29, 2003 by Brian Wibben

I loved my Pocket PC for a few months, until it started to lock up all the time. Everyday for the past year I have had to do at least one soft reboot.

It works great as a PDA, but horrible as a cellular phone. I live in Santa Rosa, California. 50 miles north of San Francisco. The reception goes from 4 bars to nothing, and even if you have reception sometimes it will not allow you to answer the call. Very frustrating for the hundreds of dollars it costs!

The internet portion worked really well along with email and web surfing. Plus it holds a lot of memory for games and other work related programs.

Your best bet is to buy a cell phone and PDA seperately or find a better product that has all the glitches fixed first.

I used this phone for two years....

I read through the reviews and I was a bit surprised. I used this phone for over two years. I finally got frustrated enough and went with another more "traditional" phone that gave me the functionality that I wanted, but not as well.

I'll give you a bit of background so you have context: I've been in the technology industry for 20+ years. I've done everything there is to do in a B2B software company..designed and wrote code, trained and supported it, marketed and sold it, etc. I even co-owned a software company. I'm currently a senior executive at a software company and work in sales and marketing. I travel quite extensively domestically and internationally and wanted a device that would combine phone and PDA capabilities to help keep me in touch and organized.

My perspectives:

1) This device is among the best at "organization" and synchronization. I really liked the MS integration.

2) This device sucks as a phone. The sound is poor at my end, and people on the other end oftentimes had a hard time hearing me (I replaced the phone 3 times because of this). The supplied two-piece headset doesn't work for the truly mobile. I was told that the bluetooth device was an improvement, but at $300 retail I didn't want to run the risk of throwing more money at an already expensive device.

3) The GUI was extremely difficult to use if you were mobile. It works fine if you're at a desk and can use the stylus, but that takes two hands. The GUI actually works against the device's form factor.

4) The support was marginal at best (T-Mobile). I really wanted to see this device succeed and I offered several times to provide feedback. I gave up after multiple hours on the phone waiting for the right person in T-Mobile's data staff.

I'm looking seriously at the new Blackberry 7100. It's cheaper, with better sound, easier to use with one-hand and with a much better user interface. It's too bad the Pocket PC people couldn't figure it all out.

Erases all my data off SD Card!!

This phone is awesome except one VERY big problem. Everything you put on the SD Card, like your back up so that you do not lose data, gets erased without doing a thing! This is a major problem, which I feel should be a RECALL on this phone. I love everything about it except you are limited due to this problem. The phone is not what you are paying for. T-Mobile acknowledges that this is a known issue. They said it is a problem with the Bios and keep checking their site for an update............Still waiting.........Do not buy this phone if you plan on needing storage space. I was told to buy a card reader for my desktop computer and to reformat the memory card, that this fixes the problem occasionally. Not the case.....I would be very happy if they fixed the problem, or replace my phone with a similar model, perhaps the HP!

NOt bad but one major bug

So i like this little gadget, because I was tired of carrying around my pocket pc and my cell phone, since I do not talk alot on the phone this is ideal for me. I like to use my pocket pc as an mp3 palyer as well, this is where the bug really bugs me... sorry couldn't resist the pun...the device erases SD cards...while in use, while not in use, just point blank erases them. called tmobile and was informed it is a known bug. I really like the device, i just want it to fully function. I would have rated it excellent given it a 5 but i does not perform to expectations when it erases the SD card.

Great PDA Phone

I recently ordered one of these phones and I think it is a truly great PDA Phone. The speaker phone is clear and loud. I can easily hear the talking from the person on the other end. So far I only ran into one problem and I must have just been the one I bought. My problem was I could not update the ROM. I contacted T-Mobile, was told Tier 3 Support would call me with 2 hours. A few days later I called up again and finally got ahold of the support. They sent a new unit out quickly with the update installed already. I can't wait for the Windows Pocket PC 2003 to be released for this phone. I would recommend this phone any anyone not wanting to carry around a PDA and a phone. I hope this gives you a little insight on the phone.

voicestream finally a good pda

Aug 21, 2002 by curtis morgan

This is the best thing that Voice stream service has put out. If you want a good pda with voicestream service I would defiantly go for this one. Otherwise there are many other color pdas out right now that other companies offer. Ex: Sprint has many!

Great Product!

Oct 21, 2002 by Ken Arcand

This really is a great device. NOT having to plug in a headset to use it as a Cell Phone is a big advantage over many other PDA/Phones. The speaker phone is pretty good quality as well. Features of the PDA are many (full blown versions of Microsoft Word/Excel). Synchronizes easily with the cradle and software provided. A little difficult to maneuver around various web pages. It is best to set these up while in remote mode (you can download free software which allows you to remotely operate the device from your computer screen - w/ mouse - while in the cradle). 1-Button access to calendar, phonebook, and recently visited features in the phone make it a truly great device. Wireless service/reception is good compared to other T-Mobile handsets (at least in "Chicagoland").